A FRAGMENT 

of the 

PRISON EXPERIENCES 

of 


mma Goldman and Alexander Berkman 


In the State Prison at Jefferson City , Mo., 
and the U. S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga. 
February, 1918 — October, 1919 


Order from 
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SSI 




A FOREWORD 

rj^HERE was a time — and that not so very long ago — when popular ignor- 
ance and superstition looked upon an insane person as one possessed of 
the devil or of some other evil spirit. They sought to drive the “evil one” 
out by beating and torturing the insane, and often even by drowning, hang- 
ing, and burning. 

We have fortunately passed that stage of stupid brutality. Today even 
the most ignorant man knows that insanity is a disease. But in regard to 
crime and criminals we are still in the stage of dark-age superstition. We 
look upon the criminal today as we did upon the insane fifty or seventy-five 
years ago. Most men still believe that by beating and punishing the crim- 
inal, by hanging and electrocution, we can drive the “evil spirit” out of 
him. This process is called reforming the criminal. 

Yet common sense and all human experience prove that the criminal 
is no more responsible for crime than the crazy man for his insanity. The 
pseudo-scientific theories of the Lombrosos in regard to crime and criminals 
have been thoroughly exploded and proven utterly fallacious. Even if the 
Lombroso myth that the criminal is born were true, what good would it do 
to punish him? There might be some social justification for his isolation, 
but how could the criminal, if born such, be held accountable for his crimin- 
ality? 

But as a matter of fact — as modern criminology has proven beyond all 
dispute — the criminal is made, not born. He is the product of his environ- 
ment, a child of poverty and desperation, of misery, greed, and ambition. 
He is at the same time the symbol and the proof of a diseased social condi- 
tion, the miscarriage of perverted economic arrangements. Fully 97 per cent, 
of all crime is due directly to our economic institutions. The other 3 per 
cent, are traceable to the artificiality and neurosis of modern life, to the anti- 
social tendencies cultivated among the weeds in the neglected and mistreated 
garden of human life. 

I have been in close contact with so-called criminals for a great many 
years. Yet nowhere have I found the alleged “criminal type,” nor have I 

3 

'O , 


ever discovered the “real criminal.” He does not exist. Crime is simply 
misdirected energy, effort applied wrongly. The average criminal is just 
the average man, generally speaking. If in any sense he may be considered 
a “variation,” it is only because of his frequently superior initiative, daring 
and intellgence. His often anti-social activity is conditioned by his uncon- 
ventional vocation, not by any inherent criminal or anti-social tendencies. 
I am not speaking of congenital criminal degenerates whose number is in- 
finitesimal, and who belong in the care of the alienist. The vast majority 
of the so-called criminal class are thoroughly normal human beings, if the 
term may be applied to the type of man produced by modern civilization. I 
have had scores and hundreds of professional criminals, young and old, tell 
me again and again, “The only hope and ambition of my life is just to get a 
little pile, so that I can feel secure from want. Then I’d take my family 
somewhere in the country and live a quiet and honest life.” 

My present space is limited. I can merely shadow forth here a skeleton 
outline of this big and very vital subject. In a forthcoming book I shall 
analyze more thoroughly the sources and the psychology of crime, and write 
of the unique and interesting prison types and characters I have met. 

For the present it is sufficient to emphasize that our whole social attitude 
toward the criminal is fundamentally wrong. It is the attitude of barbaric 
stupidity that seeks to hide its own shame and its mistakes behind prison 
bars. It has neither understanding of human motives nor sympathy with 
human weaknesses. This social attitude toward the criminal, representing 
the lowest human intelligence, is reflected in the management and discipline 
of the prisons. It is apparent that modern criminology has had a very 
negligible effect upon the popular mind within the last twenty-five years, for 
I have found the prisons of today in no essential way different from those of 
a quarter of a century back. Brutality is rampant; discipline is synonymous 
with the absolute suppression of individuality and the crushing of the 
prisoner’s spirit and will. The atmosphere of our penal institutions of today 
is that of violence and force, of force and violence. With very rare excep- 
tions, the spirit of humanity, of understanding, and justice, is a stranger in 
prison. 


I t ^change 

4 7 

| hrn 48 1^43 

I Aec*ss«onc j 


Alexander Berkman 


THE STATE PRISON AT JEFFERSON CITY, MO. 

EMMA GOLDMAN 

HHWENTY-SIX years ago, in 1893, I paid the first toll for my opinions 

in the State of New York with a year’s free residence in the Blackwell’s 
Island Penitentiary. I found the cells small, dark, and filthy, the sanitary 
conditions appalling, and the general attitude toward the convict on the 
part of prison officials hard and cruel. 

Terrible as these conditions were, they had some justification. In 
1893 there was barely a spark anywhere to discredit the antiquated and 
inhuman theory of predestination — the Calvinistic idea that man is born 
a sinner and that he must expiate his sins through suffering and pain. This 
attitude toward the criminal and the methods of punishment rest on this 
biblical conception to this very day. Much more did that idea prevail 
twenty-six years ago. 

Since then criminology has undergone a revolution. Libraries are 
filled with works on the origin and causes of crime, on the futility of punish- 
ment as a corrective of crime. More and more frequently modern writers 
have pointed out that crimes are related to social conditions, and that brutal 
treatment of prisoners makes them become more hardened and anti-social. 

With a vast literature on scientific criminology and the widespread 
attempt to reform prisons, to humanize the treatment of the unfortunate 
social offender, one might have expected some changes in the penal institu- 
tions of this country. Yet in the year 1918 in the States of Missouri and 
Georgia, and for aught we know in every State in the land, prisons continue 
to be “built of bricks of shame” and 

The vilest deeds, like poison weeds, 

Bloom well in prison air. 

It is only what is good in Man 
That wastes and withers there. 

Pale anguish keeps the heavy gate, 

And the Warder is Despair. 

To be sure, the cells in the Missouri State Penitentiary, at least in the 
female wing, are larger and some of them lighter than the vermin-infested 
cells on Blackwell’s Island twenty-six years ago. But even there the cells 
are never light enough except on very .sunny days, while more than half 
the cells are in utter darkness and without ventilation. In fact, air is the 
most tabooed article in the Missouri prison. Except in extremely warm 
weather, the windows are rarely opened, healthy women are forced to breathe 

5 


the putrid air of consumptives and syphiletics. During the influenza epi- 
demic, when thirty-five prisoners lay stricken, we had to plead and fight 
for the opening of a window. To this day I can not understand how any 
one of us survived, except that the Lord “takes care of us poor sinners.” 

Yes, the cells are larger, the sanitation modern, but in every other 
respect, in the attitude of the officials toward the prisoner, the cold indif- 
ference to his needs, the methods of breaking his will, and, above all, the 
mode of employment have not improved, but are even worse than my experi- 
ence on Blackwell’s Island in 1893. 

I cannot dwell here on the blood-freezing reception accorded each 
hopeless victim when the prison doors close upon her. That alone is enough 
to crush the bravest spirit and to turn one’s very soul to gall and hate. I 
shall treat of this in my forthcoming book, dealing with my twenty months’ 
experience in the Missouri State Prison. 

It is the task system that prevails in this prison — as truly slavery 
as ever existed in this country before the Civil War — which chiefly needs 
to be exposed. The contract system of prison labor has been abolished 
“officially” — the State is now the employer. Yet no slave owner so drove, 
coerced and exploited his slaves as Missouri bleeds and exploits its help- 
less victims in the penitentiary at Jefferson City. 

Two months are allowed to learn the trade, which consists of sewing 
jackets, overalls, auto coats and suspenders — tasks varying from 45 to 121 
jackets a day, or from 9 to 18 dozen suspenders a day. Now, while the 
actual machine work on these different tasks is the same, the number of 
jackets in the 88 or 121 tasks is double to the 45, 55 and 66 tasks ; hence double 
physical exertion is required. Yet the different tasks must be made in the 
same number of hours, without regard to age, physical endurance, periods 
of menstruation, when machine work is sheer torture to women. Even ill- 
ness, unless it is of a very serious nature, is not considered sufficient cause 
to be relieved from the terrible task. So, unless one had previous experi- 
ence in the needle trade, or a special aptitude for it, one’s life is made a 
veritable hell, beginning a few days after commitment and lasting till the 
final day of release. No understanding for human variations, no consid- 
eration for mental or physical limitations, except for a few favorites of 
the prison officials, those who are usually the most worthless. The shop 
foreman in charge is a boy of twenty-one, who took up the art of slave driv- 
ing at the age of sixteen. He bullies and terrorizes the women, holding 
the threat of the blind cell and the bread-and-water diet over them. 

The vilest language is used to the women, some of them old enough 
to be the boy’s mother. Of course, he is paid to show results. The only 
way he can get results is through slave-driving methods, as well as by ac- 
tually stealing part of the women’s output, especially from the more ignorant, 
who are unable to do their own counting. 

On more than one occasion I have seen this miserable foreman delib- 
erately steal jackets and suspenders from colored girls who are serving 
twenty-five year sentences and from illiterate white girls. If they dare insist 

6 


that they delivered their quota of work, they are punished for “impudence,” 
in addition to being punished for “short” work. In view of the fact that 
four punishment marks, a month reduce the prisoner one grade, and that 
‘a higher grade means speedier release from the prison hell, the enormity 
of this petty official’s criminal thievery can be appreciated. Yet this man 
is considered fit to be in charge of sixty to seventy “criminals.” It does 
not take much wisdom to find the greater criminal. 

It may be argued that this ignorant and vulgar young man is only a 
tool, and therefore not to blame. Partly this is true. The State is the 
real offender, the officials of the Prison Board, as well as the petty sub- 
ordinates who live by the sweat and blood of the social outcasts. The very 
first year the State of Missouri became the exploiter of the convicts’ labor, 
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the salaries of the prison officials 
had been increased $20,000 per annum. No wonder the Acting Warden, 
Captain Gilvan — a bully and a brute who used to administer flogging when 
it was still “officially” in vogue in Missouri — once said to us in the shop, 
“I must have the task. You must make it. No such thing as can’t. If you 
do not give me the task, I will punish you. And I punish cheerfully.” Hav- 
ing the support and approval of such a man and the sanction of the head 
matron, a woman entirely bereft of feeling, it is natural for the foreman 
to squeeze and press and bully the task out of the women. But can anyone 
suppose that the foreman could lend himself to such brutal slave-driving, 
if he were not depraved himself? 

It is utterly impossible to keep up the required speed day after day. 
The working hours are nine a day, but in order to complete the task, the 
women are driven to the old-time sweatshop methods of taking work evenings 
to their cells. In view of the fact that the cells are vermin infested, and 
the jackets and suspenders the prisoners make are sold broadcast and have 
already been handled by consumptive and venereally infected male prisoners, 
who prepare the work, the results can readily be imagined. 

Personally I was well supplied by many friends with nourishing food. 
I am an adept at the needle trade, having worked at it for many years, when 
I first came to know the many economic opportunities in our so-called 
democracy. Yet I never could keep up the mind- and soul-destroying speed 
in the prison shop. Therefore I know what it means to the underfed women 
prisoners. Not one but emerges with impaired health. 

If the contract system were really abolished, why would the State of Mis- 
souri drive its prison inmates? For a very simple reason: the State of 
Missouri, like the private contractor, does business with private concerns 
in every State of the Union. Proof of this is given by the labels sewn 
on every garment that ieaves the prison. I was able to smuggle out a 
few, which are reproduced here. 

Civilization claims to have advanced, and in no country do we hear 
so much about prison reform as in our own. Yet what can we say for the 
State of Missouri, when at the head of their female department is a woman 

7 



8 





in charge of ninety women prisoners who has control over their life and 
death? 

This woman, Lilah Smith, has been employed in penal institutions 
since her fifteenth year, and has, therefore, little education or training. She 
is a believer in rigid discipline and punishment. She is really a neurotic, 
who has no control over her temper. She uses physical violence on the 
slightest pretext, especially when a particular prisoner is not in her good 
graces. Not once in twenty months did I hear her address one single en- 
couraging or kind word to a prisoner. Flogging in the State of Missouri 
has been officially abolished, but Lilah Smith’s vigorous slapping goes on. 

There are three methods of punishment: First, the women are deprived 
of their recreation; second, they are locked up in their cells for forty-eight 
hours, from Saturday to Monday, on a diet of bread and water, and then 
expected to begin their task Monday in their weakened condition; third, 
they are sent to a blind cell, a cell 52 inches by 104 inches, with an aper- 
ture of 7 inches by iy 2 inches, supplied with one blanket, two pieces of 
bread and two cups of water a day. In this tomb they are kept from three 
to twenty-two days. 

Added to this maddening torture are the bull rings, which, while never 
used for white women during my stay, were used on colored girls. 

The worst tragedy which occurred during my stay in the prison was 
the deliberate murder of Minnie Eddy. When I entered in February, Minnie 
had already been there a number of months. She struggled valiantly with 
the task, which she seemed unable to master. To avoid punishment, she 
used every cent her sister sent her to hire the task. In November, 1918, she 
began to complain of pain in her head and throat. She went to the doctor, 
but he ordered her back to the shop. She went back, but seemed unable 
to pull herself together to do any work. The matron decided she was 
shamming, and put her in punishment. At first she was kept in her own 
cell on bread and water; then the matron, realizing that we were feeding 
Minnie, transferred her to the so-called hospital, where a mattress was 
refused her, and only a bare cot and blanket were supplied. In that place 
the unfortunate woman was kept another week. 

I went to the matron shortly after Minnie was put in the hospital, 
begging for her release. It was refused, the matron still insisting that 
the woman was shamming. Then, Thanksgiving Day, Minnie was brought 
down and allowed to eat her Thanksgiving dinner of putrid pork on an 
empty stomach. Two days later I took Minnie a couple of soft-boiled 
eggs, and seeing on her table a box sent by her relatives some weeks before, 
and which had just been given her, I warned her against using the decayed 
food in her present condition. But she was ravenous. 

That evening some of the prison trusties came to me and told me that 
Minnie was in a heap on the floor, unconscious. I demanded that they 
call Miss Smith, the matron. The matron screamed at and slapped the 
unconscious woman. She was allowed to remain in her cell until Monday, 
*vhen I could endure the situation no longer, and insisted on seeing Mr. 

9 


Painter, President of the Prison Board, who came over at once. He had 
been told that Minnie was refusing food. He gave orders to have her moved 
back to her own cell, and put one of the girls in charge as her nurse. From 
the latter I learned that an attempt was made to feed Minnie forcibly, but 
it was too late. She never regained consciousness, dying Wednesday eve- 
ning, at seven o’clock. Her terrible death benefited the other women, inas- 
much as no one was afterwards placed in the death trap for more than 
five days. So do the dead sometimes aid the living. 

There are two criterions on the part of the officials in dealing with the 
prisoners . If they are sick , they are told that they are shamming ; if they 
cannot make the task, they are told they are lazy. 

Frequently sick prisoners are ordered back to the shop by the physi- 
cian when they are barely able to drag themselves along. This is the 
more remarkable because he is not an unkindly man and was especially 
decent to me. The reason for his indifference to the other women there I 
discovered during my last days at the prison. He is at daggers’ points 
with the Board; therefore he is unable to do what he would like. 

The Missouri State Penitentiary has the merit system, which is only 
another method of pressing out more labor from its victims. Those who 
can stand the nerve-tearing speed and get into Class A, the highest class, 
have their time reduced almost in half. Therefore many of the women 
work beyond their limit of physical capacity to get out of the hell hole, 
even at the expense of their health. However, only State prisoners benefit 
by this merit system. Not so the Federal prisoners. They are forced to 
make the task every day, though their time is in no way affected. Imagine 
the outrage in the case x of a prisoner serving a twenty-five-year sentence. 
Day after day, year in and year out, she is browbeaten and harassed to 
make the task. If she fails, she is repeatedly thrown into the “blind cell.” 
If she succeeds, she gains nothing. The Federal Government pays the 
State for the upkeep of each Federal prisoner. In addition, the State makes 
a huge profit from the labor of these Federals. In return, it gives them 
not a single privilege. The reduction of six days’ time a month is pro- 
vided for by the Federal Government. It is a most unspeakable injustice 
toward helpless human beings. 

In disclosing conditions prevalent in the Female Department of the 
Missouri State Penitentiary I am in no way prompted by personal griev- 
ances. Thanks to the liberality of Mr. William R. Painter, President of 
the Prison Board, and possibly also because of the fear of publicity on the 
part of the management, I have no personal complaints to make. In jus- 
tice to Mr. Painter, I must say that he is a rather unusual man for his posi- 
tion. Whenever his attention was called to some grievances, he was always 
ready to remedy it. But prison abuses are conditioned in the very character 
of prison life and in corrupt politics, so that nothing short of the complete 

10 


abolition of prisons will ever eradicate the terrible wrongs committed in 
penal institutions. 

Meanwhile it is necessary to continue to point out that criminals are 
victims of our mad social arrangement, and to emphasize the utter failure 
of punishment as a corrective, as well as to expose the average brutal and 
ignorant type of prison official. The recognition of this may help to change 
our better-than-thou attitude toward the criminal. 

As for my own experience, in all my twenty months of the closest con- 
tact with my fellow prisoners, I did not find one I could call depraved, cruel 
or hard. On the contrary, I know a “lifer” there who came to the peni- 
tentiary hardly more than a child. She has already served fifteen years. 
She is a most tender and devoted creature. She has one hold on life — a 
dog, whom she loves and tends with a mother’s devotion. Who is the true 
criminal — this poor heart-broken little woman or the officials who have 
the power to let her spend her remaining years in freedom, and yet keep 
her? Another woman, who has a fifteen-year sentence, is completely 
broken in health, and in constant physical misery. She is passionately 
devoted to her only child, a little boy. Is she the criminal or those who 
keep her there? Her offense was the result of a moment’s aberration; 
theirs is a cold-blooded, methodical and daily crime. Who is the greater 
criminal ? Another woman, the mother of eight children, worked and 
starved half to death on a farm. She is thrown into prison for stealing 
a pig. Who is the greater criminal, this poor woman or the State which 
sent her there? I found no criminals among my fellow prisoners, only 
unfortunates — broken, helpless, hapless and hopeless human beings. 

How rich in comparison are we political prisoners! Kate Richards 
O’Hare, who has the gift of going into the life of every prisoner, soothing 
and comforting and sustaining her, and is herself sustained by the ideal and 
the love of thousands. Rare little Ella Antolini, with her marvelous stoicism, 
her splendid fortitude, and her great capacity for human sympathy. We 
politicals are rich, indeed. Rich in the love of our dear comrades, rich in our 
faith of the future, strong in our position. But the others? It is for them 
we plead, against the wrongs, the inhumanities committed against those in 
the prison we left behind. Indeed, in every prison in the land. 

Emma Goldman 


11 


THE ATLANTA FEDERAL PENITENTIARY 

Statement by Alexander Berkman 

Published in the Atlanta Constitution , October 1, 1919, on the day 
of his release from the Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga. 


T HIS country is at the present time going through the same throes of social 
and industrial rebirth that are convulsing England, France and other 
European countries. The steelworkers’ strike is merely one of the symptoms 
of the social evolutionary process that may in the near future culminate in 
revolution. The sources of labor discontent in this country are identical with 
those in every other land of our so-called civilization. The working masses 
are not satisfied any more with empty political democracy; they demand a 
share in the products of their industry, and the opportunity to live, to enjoy 
life. Industrial slavery, perhaps more acute in the United States than any- 
where else, is on its death-bed. The next step in the social life of the world 
is the taking over of all industry by the workers, both manual and mental, to 
be managed and operated by themselves, for the benefit of the producers 
instead of for the profit of our industrial and financial Kaisers. 

The present struggle of the steel workers vividly calls back to my mem- 
ory the great steel strike of Homestead, in 1892, when the Pinkertons hired by 
Carnegie and Frick shot the strikers down wholesale for demanding living 
conditions. In connection with the Homestead strike I served fourteen years 
in the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. We have made some progress 
since then. The workers, especially, have learned a good deal since the days 
of the Homestead strike. They have learned the most important lesson of 
all, and that is that labor has an invincible weapon in solidarity. That is 
also the lesson that is being impressed on American labor today by the 
workers of England. Soon the American Federation of Labor will realize 
that it is folly to call a strike of steel workers, without at the same time se- 
curing the solidaric support of all the other key industries — the railway men 
and the miners, for instance. As long as the workers in those industries strike 
separately, at different times, they run the risk of defeat. But a simultaneous 
strike of all the three key industries would quickly bring our Garys, Morgans 
and Fricks to their senses. 

But whatever the immediate outcome of the steel strike, it is but a ques- 
tion of a short time before American labor will make solidaric cause through- 
out all industries and assert the right of the toilers to the ownership of the 

12 


full product of their toil. The day of capitalistic autocracy is gone. The 
future belongs to the proletariat of hand and brain. 

The present labor situation in the United States is full of promise for 
the future. The war and its results have proven a great education for the 
peoples of the world. They are sick of the high-sounding phrases about po- 
litical democracy and self-determination that are in practice like so many 
scraps of paper. It is industrial autocracy that the workers of the world seek 
to destroy. This country, the alleged champion of democracy, is being daily 
changed more and more into the regime of Prussian militarism. The Govern- 
ment of the United States has taken advantage of the alleged necessities of the 
war to crush the spirit of liberty and to deprive the people of the last vestige 
of freedom. It has now become dangerous, in this free country of ours, to 
express an independent opinion upon any subject, except perhaps about 
the weather. Free speech and press are a thing of the past. The American 
junkers and plutocrats are swamping the country with propaganda for a 
strong militarism. Our industrial autocrats see the handwriting on the wall 
and hope to crush the gathering forces of labor by the bayonet and the ma- 
chine gun. The voice of liberty is being stifled in the prisons. Our jails and 
penitentiaries are full of political and industrial prisoners who have dared 
to hold an opinion of their own and to express it. Men like Debs and others 
are immured behind iron bars because they love liberty more than they do 
patrioteering. It is to the eternal disgrace of this country that conscientious 
objectors, political and industrial prisoners have not yet been given an 
amnesty, though even some of the reactionary countries of Europe have long 
since restored their social protestants to liberty. If there is any manhood 
left in the people of America, they should immediately voice the most com- 
pelling demand for a general amnesty for all political and industrial 
prisoners. 

Rebels against industrial autocracy, such as Debs, Kate Richards O’Hare, 
and others, should be the pride of the United States instead of being kept in 
dungeons. Woe to a country that has no Debs, Kate O’Hare or Emma Gold- 
man! They are the voices that cry out the best aspirations of humanity, 
even in the face of the gravest danger to themselves. 

Speaking of Debs, I was happy to have the opportunity this morning, 
before leaving the Federal Prison at Atlanta, to shake hands with the Grand 
Old Man of the New Day. If there ever was a martyr to liberty, Debs is 
that man. How stupid it is of the Government to jail men of his type! Prison 
cannot crush their spirit, nor iron bars and brutality change their conscience. 
Their love of humanity transcends the fear of punishment or death. There 
are times when the scaffold is the most elevated position for an honest man 
Ideals cannot be imprisoned, nor can the eternal spirit of liberty be extermin- 
ated by shutting up its champions in dungeons or deporting men and women 
out of the United States. I feel, I am convinced, that the future belongs to 
us — to us who strive to regenerate society, to abolish poverty, misery, war and 

13 


crime, by doing away with the causes of these evils. And even in prison, 
where we cannot fight for liberty, we can always struggle for principle. 

It is this attitude of the political prisoners in all prisons that makes their 
lot even harder than that of the average prisoner. It is time the United States 
Government should take its head put of the bushes and recognize the ex- 
istence of political prisoners in this country. Even in Czarist Russia 
the political prisoner was recognized as a man suffering for his ideals. Be- 
nighted America still considers the political just the same as the so-called 
common criminal. In the Atlanta Federal Prison the politicals fare even 
worse than the average prisoner. A banker who got away with the savings 
of poor widows and orphans receives the highest consideration, while the 
man who loves humanity more than his own safety is subjected to special 
persecution and discrimination. 

I find that very few essential changes have taken place in the adminis- 
tration of our prisons within the last 25 years. The same system of brutal- 
izing and degrading the prisoners still prevails. Only the forms differ 
slightly. The dungeon (known as “the hole”), chaining up by the wrists, 
clubbing and shooting, are the dominant methods of reformation in Atlanta. 
Men are chained to the doors for eight and ten hours consecutively, without 
even the opportunity of answering the most pressing demands of nature. I 
have known men in the Federal Prison to be kept 21 to 30 days at a stretch in 
“the hole,” which is a filthy, dark kennel, not fit for a respectable dog, and 
fed on two small slices of bread twice a day. Men are clubbed frequently, 
on the least provocation, and recently a young colored boy, “Kid” Smith, 
was shot dead for not walking fast enough while being taken to “the hole.” 

The average type of guard in the Federal Prison is far below that of the 
average prisoner, both mentally and morally. Excepting a few decent officers, 
of a humane spirit, the majority of the guards are vulgar, brutal and dis- 
sipated men. Some are degenerates of the worst type. At their head is 
Deputy Warden Girardeau, formerly in charge of a chain gang. He is a man 
of very low mentality who believes in the old-time methods of brutality and 
suppression. His tactics look towards the breaking of the prisoner’s spirit 
and to the degradation of the inmates. A prison is the last place in the world, 
even at its best, to improve a man. But the Atlanta Prison tends chiefly to 
dehumanize the prisoners and to crush the last vestige of their manhood and 
self-respect. It is the Deputy Warden who is mainly responsible for the in- 
humanities and outrages practiced in the Federal Prison. He encourages the 
most brutal tendencies of the guards, and even frequently protests and nulli- 
fies the Warden’s more humane attitude. The Deputy Warden is the most 
hated man in the prison. The inmates regard him as a religious hypocrite, 
insincere and mean-spirited. It is his custom, after reading Sunday service, 
to go down to the dungeon and chain men up to the doors. He tantalizes 
the hungry victims in “the hole” with the recital of the fine breakfast he had 
enjoyed that morning, and in various ways seeks to provoke them into some 
unguarded remark in order to increase their punishment. In protest against 

14 


the murderous clubbing and shooting of defenseless prisoners, I circulated a 
petition in the tailor shop (where I was employed at the time), to call the 
attention of the Warden to the terrible situation. The Deputy, hearing about 
it, sent for me and asked me what my purpose was. I explained to him the 
general indignation regarding the abuse of the prisoners, whereupon he asked 
me my opinion of his methods. I told him frankly that his actions did not 
square with his religious professions. I said that he was cruel to the men, 
that he lacked all sense of justice and fair play, and that I thought — as well 
as the majority of the prisoners — that he was a hypocrite. For this I was put 
on bread and water in “the hole,” a dark and filthy cell hardly big enough 
to stretch out in. After my time in “the hole” had expired, I was sentenced 
to solitary confinement for the rest of my time. I spent the last seven and 
a half months there. 

The Federal Prison at Atlanta would profit a great deal both in disci- 
pline and morale by the immediate discharge of Deputy Warden Girardeau. 
Warden Fred G. Zerbst is a man far above the Deputy in every sense. He 
is a man of modern ideas and of much experience in handling prison inmates. 
He believes in the more humane methods of prison management as against 
the Deputy’s system of brutal repression. Unfortunately, the Warden is al- 
most entirely occupied with the outside affairs of the prison, so that the inside 
management is practically all in the hands of the Deputy. There is con- 
siderable friction between the two, with deplorable results to the prisoners. 
Very frequently the best intentions of the Warden are nullified by the manner 
of their application at the hands of the Deputy. 

It is high time that the public get a look into the inside workings of our 
penal institutions. The amount of brutality practiced in them as a matter of 
daily routine is almost unbelievable. When will people realize that the crim- 
inal is a man more sinned against than sinning, a victim of our unjust social 
and economic arrangements? But after all, prisons and their methods are a 
reflex of the conditions in the world outside. With so much injustice, strife 
and brutality in the world at large, it is no wonder that prison life mirrors 
the same spirit. When we become civilized enough to abolish human slaughter 
in the larger prison called society, when we reorganize life on the basis of 
human brotherhood and co-operation, we will have no use for prisons. 

Atlanta, Ga. 

October 1, 1919. Alexander Berkman 


15 


REPLY OF FRED G. ZERBST 
Warden of the U. S. Federal Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga. 


Editor Constitution: 

In yesterday’s issue of your paper you printed an article under the 
heading, “Berkman Charges Brutal Methods in Atlanta Pen,” and which 
article is devoted principally to a personal attack on Deputy Warden 
Charles H. Girardeau. It is also charged that a majority of the guards are 
vulgar, brutal and dissipated men. 

It is not my custom to reply to ridiculous statements or attacks upon this 
institution made by irresponsible individuals, but in this case the attack is 
somewhat along personal lines, and in justice to the men so attacked I trust 
that you will see fit to accord this communication the same privilege to space 
in your columns as that accorded to Mr. Berkman’s foul and unwarranted 
personal attack. 

Deputy Warden Charles H. Girardeau is a Christian gentleman of high 
character, clean habits and high ideals, who performs his duties conscien- 
tiously with a view no less for the welfare of those confined here than for 
the government under which we live. He has lived in Atlanta for a great 
many years and is known intimately by many of Atlanta’s best citizens. I 
wonder if any of these people can picture Charlie Girardeau as a low-minded, 
brutal fiend who tortures his unfortunate victims in the manner described by 
Mr. Berkman. On the one hand we have here a man who has been in Atlanta 
business and public life for a great many years, always working to build up 
its citizenship and its institutions, always having in view the public welfare. 
On the other hand we have Mr. Berkman, who came to this country an 
anarchist disguised by the pretense of seeking the benefits of American free- 
dom. . . . Mr. Berkman served a sentence of 22 years in the Pennsyl- 

vania State prison, after which he made the same kind of an attack on 
that institution as he has on this one. 

Referring to the attack on the character of the guards on duty at this in- 
stitution, the guard force here as a whole is constituted of good loyal Ameri- 
cans, who perform their duties with painstaking care, and it requires much 
tact and patience to handle men of all different mentalities and character as- 
tpmbled in a penal institution. The public little realizes the work performed 
By these men at a compensation hardly sufficient to live decently. These guards 
afe appointed only after passing a standard examination prescribed by the 
pnited States civil service commission after careful investigation showing 
'that they are loyal Americans, that they are men of good moral character 

16 


and standing in the community in which they have lived and that they possess 
in a high degree the qualifications necessary for the position. If any great 
.daily paper believes that these guards are of such character as Mr. Berkman 
describes, it would be well to endeavor to rectify the methods by which they 
are selected. 

This institution is open to the public each day except Sundays, and many 
thousands of visitors take advantage of this and inspect every department. 
Unlike most similar institutions our isolation building, in which are confined 
men who can not be brought in any other way to respect the rights of others 
and the rules of the institution, is open to the public. Mr. Berkman claims 
that these “filthy dungeons” are cleaned up purely for the public visitors; 
if that be so they must be cleaned twice each day and it would not be possible 
for them to be very filthy at any time. 

I do not ask to be exonerated on account of any improper conditions exist- 
ing at this institution, if such do exist, and I cheerfully accept responsibility 
for its management as long as I am its Warden. This management, however, 
will be in the interest of the government constituted by the American people 
and not in the interest of a revolutionary propaganda seeking for the destruc- 
tion of that government and the substitution therefor of the doctrines of Alex- 
ander Berkman and his associates, the abolition of all laws. 

Very truly yours, 

Fred G. Zerbst, Warden. 




17 


REPLY TO WARDEN FRED G. ZERBST 


Editor Constitution: 

In your issue of October 4, 1919, Warden Fred G. Zerbst, of the Federal 
Prison at Atlanta, makes an alleged reply to my charges of brutality, cor- 
ruption and incompetence on the part of the management of the Federal Peni- 
tentiary. 

The outstanding feature of Warden Zerbst’s statement is its entire failure 
to discredit my charges, much less to disprove them. I made definite accu- 
sations, gave facts, cited specific instances. The Warden’s only reply is, in 
essence, “All’s well, and there is nothing more to be said about it.” That is 
the good old traditional policy of the authorities of all penal and other sim- 
ilar institutions since time immemorial. When facing charges of corruption 
and brutality, they resort to the grand gesture of waving the terrible indict- 
ment flippantly aside, with the too-easy declaration, “Nothing to it.” But 
an outraged public sentiment, in numerous similar cases, has but too often 
exposed this high-and-mighty attitude as the invariable camouflage of rotten 
conditions within the prison walls. To cite but one recent instance, still com- 
paratively vivid in the pubic memory, will be sufficient. I refer to the case 
of Mr. Moyer, former Warden of the Atlanta Federal Prison, who consistently 
scoffed at and ridiculed the charges of Julian Hawthorne (the son of his 
famous father) till the Hawthorne revelations of prison abuse and outrage, 
corroborated by numerous other prisoners and former inmates, were proven 
to the hilt, and Warden Moyer summarily dismissed by the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

I appreciate the spirit of chivalry, of the esprit de corps , that prompts 
Warden Zerbst to rush to the rescue of Deputy Warden Girardeau and his 
assistants, against whom my indictment is chiefly directed. I have empha- 
sized in my previous statement that Warden Zerbst is more humane and in- 
telligent than the Deputy Warden. I may now add that he is also generous, 
all too generous, to his official subordinates. But chivalry may be misplaced 
— it is misplaced in the present case. It will not do for Mr. Zerbst to barrage 
the outrages committed within the prison walls with his loyalty to his official 
family. He owes a duty, a prior duty, to the public, to the taxpayers that 
support the institution over which he presides. Besides, he also owes a 
duty to the men in his keeping, the inmates — about 1,500 helpless unfortu- 
nates — a duty he owes in the interests of justice and humanity. 

To my specific charge that Deputy Warden Girardeau is brutal and of 
low moral and mental calibre, the Warden replies that Mr. Girardeau is a 
well-known citizen of Atlanta. ’Tis a rather lame and unconvincing refuta- 
tion of my charge. To my indictment of the majority of the guards as vulgar, 
brutal and dissipated men, the Warden replies that they have satisfactorily 
filled out certain civil service blanks, or passed some other perfunctory ex- 

18 


amination. Yet in the very next breath he admits that “ the work is per- 
formed by these men at a compensation hardly sufficient to live decently.” 
In other words, the guards are paid $76.00 per month, and I leave it to the 
readers to judge what “high degree of qualification” $76.00-dollar-a-month 
men possess, in these days of high cost of living. 

I emphatically challenge the Warden’s statement that visitors are ad- 
mitted to the punishment cells I described as filthy. There are in the Atlanta 
Federal Prison two kinds of punishment cells, known respectively as the 
“dark hole” and the “light hole.” The difference between the two is ex- 
treme. The “light hole” is a comparatively large cell with a window admit- 
ting some light and air. The “dark hole” is a veritable kennel, wedge- 
shaped, about 2 y 2 feet wide at the entrance, 44/2 feet at the back, and 6 feet 
long. The prisoner is forced to sleep in this dark hole on the floor, on a 
filthy mattress, with a bit of rag for covering even in the coldest winter. Its 
only toilet facilities is an iron pail, sharp-edged, without any lid, the pail 
remaining in the cell 24 hours daily. It is emptied but once a day in the 
early morning. That’s the filthy dungeon referred to in my first statement 
in the “Constitution,” and I challenge the authorities of the prison to deny 
its existence, to deny that men are kept there for thirty days consecutively 
and sometimes longer, on an insufficient bread and water diet. No visitors, 
except government officials, or personal friends of the prison authorities, are 
ever permitted even a glance into this dark dungeon. 

Can Warden Zerbst successfully deny the above facts? Even a most 
superficial investigation would bear me out. Can the Warden contradict 
my charges that prisoners are strung up by the wrists for 8 to 12 hours at a 
stretch, for 5 to 10 consecutive days? In his statement in the “Constitution” 
the Warden fails to deny that men are frequently clubbed, nor does he even 
refer to the unprovoked murder of “Kid” Smith by Officer Dean on February 
21, 1919. What is the Warden’s reply to these direct charges? His reply 
is that “Berkman came to this country as an Anarchist, disguised by the pre- 
tence of seeking the benefits of American freedom.” A rather peculiar justi- 
fication for prison brutalities! As a matter of fact, I came to this country 
about 32 years ago, a mere boy of 17, at which time I had never heard the 
word Anarchist, nor knew its meaning. I became an Anarchist in this country, 
and it was just such methods as used by Deputy Warden Girardeau — the 
methods of tyranny, oppression and persecution, practiced not only in peni- 
tentiaries, but also in the larger prison called the world — that made me an 
Anarchist who seeks more humane forms of social life. 

Warden Zerbst pretendj to believe my charges against the institution to 
be but a “ridiculous attack somewhat along personal lines.” Why ridiculous? 
Have such things never happened before in prison? Have penal institutions 
never been known to resort to brutal methods, or are prison guards generally 
acknowledged to be the cream of human kindness, understanding, and good 
judgment? Or are “the high moral and intellectual qualifications” of 76- 
dollar-a-month men beyond question or dispute? 

The Warden states that I had made similar charges after my release from 

19 


the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. But he forgets to add that as a 
result of my indictment of the brutalities practiced in that prison, investiga- 
tions took place, my charges sustained, and practically the whole adminis- 
tration of the Western Penitentiary radically changed. 

As a matter of fact, I did not yet tell one-hundredth part of the terrible 
things that happen in the daily routine of the Atlanta Federal Prison. For 
lack of time and space I did not even mention the criminal neglect of sick 
prisoners, the deliberate starvation of the consumptive Nicholas Zogg, who 
is actually dying on his feet for lack of proper diet (he being a vegetarian), 
the unwholesome food, the vile manner in which it is served to the inmates, 
the favoritism of men with a “pull,” the discriminaton against political 
offenders, the corrupt system of “stool pigeons,” the fake trials at which the 
word of one drunken guard outweighs that of a dozen soldiers, political 
prisoners and other inmates of character and integrity, whose sole crime con- 
sisted in the expression of an unpopular opinion during the war. I have not 
yet referred to the traffic, by guards and other officials, in cocaine, morphine, 
and other “dope,” nor to the new 400-loom duck mill, the product of which 
is about to come in competition with free labor. Nor have I yet even hinted 
at the existence and the actual encouragement of homosexual practices and 
other sex aberrations resulting from suppression. I have not started yet, 
Mr. Zerbst, but I will, and that very soon. 

Are these charges just “a personal attack?” Why try to mislead the 
public? Most intelligent men know that there are terrible abuses practiced 
in penal institutions. There are several investigations of penitentiaries and 
insane, asylums going on at this very moment. The Federal Prison at Atlanta 
is no exception, and my attack is not directed against any particular individu- 
al, but against the system of tyranny, injustice and brutality inside our prisons, 
as well as outside. I want to do whatever lies in my power to ameliorate 
the conditions under which my unfortunate fellow-men in prisons have to 
suffer. I think that Warden Zerbst, as a matter of common humanity, should 
be the first to aid my efforts. As the initial step toward this he should elim- 
inate all physical violence, abolish chaining up and the stool-pigeon system, 
and try to secure a living wage for the prison guards. You can’t live these 
days on $76.00 a month. Most of the guards are married men, with families. 
Within the last two years a large number of new keepers have been engaged 
by the penitentiary, displacing the old and outworn men — engaged at $76.00 
a month, with disastrous results to the inmates. The struggle for existence 
makes the guards surly, cranky, and quarrelsome, constantly conscious of 
their grievance because of their low pay, with the tendency to vent their 
misery and ill-humor upon the unfortunates in their power. The human ele- 
ment is of vital importance in prison life. 

As a matter of common decency and fellow-feeling, in the interest of 
both the prisoners and society, I shall be happy to contribute my little share 
to bring a bit of sunshine into the dark night of the boys I left behind. 

New York, 

October, 5, 1919. 


20 


Alexander Berkman 


PERSECUTION OF POLITICALS 

T)RACTICALLY every political and industrial prisoner in the Federal 

Penitentiary at Altanta, with the exception of Eugene V. Debs, has 
been the victim of special discrimination and persecution. In the case 
of Debs, the authorities considered it best, owing to his great popularity, 
to assign him to the hospital, where he enjoys better food and treatment, 
without any particular work to do. At the same time this partial isolation 
of Eugene V. Debs from the rest of the prisoners precludes opportunity on 
his part for spreading his ideas among the inmates. 

With the sole exception of Eugene V. Debs, all the other political prison- 
ers in the Atlanta penitentiary have suffered special persecution: 

A. Hennecy, a young Socialist from Ohio, was kept in complete solitude 
and isolation for eight consecutive months. He was allowed neither to re- 
ceive or send mail, no books or papers of any kind, nor was he permitted 
work or exercise, or any other privileges usually accorded the average 
prisoner. The “crime” for which he was being thus inhumanly punished 
was, according to the official report of officer Demoss (formerly whipping 
master in the Atlanta prison), “Conversing in a suspicious manner with 
another prisoner in the yard, the other prisoner being Louis Kramer.” Both 
Hennecy and Kramer were at that time employed in the prison shops and 
permitted, like the other inmates, to be out in the yard every Saturday and 
Sunday afternoon, privileged to speak to anyone. 

A. Hennecy is now finishing a one-year sentence in the Delaware County 
Jail, Ohio, having been released from the Atlanta prison in February, 1919. 
He served in Atlanta two years on the charge of obstructing the draft. His 
present sentence is the result of his failure to register on June 4th, 1917. 

Walter Hershberger, a conscientious objector, serving 20 years for re- 
fusing to don a military uniform. (His sentence has since been reduced 
to four years.) Herschberger has been kept in solitary confinement and 
isolation almost continuously since the early part of December, 1918. His 
solitary is “broken” by frequent visits to the dungeon, a dark hole 2^x4!/2x6 
feet, where he is kept on an insufficient bread-and-water diet for periods 
ranging from 3 to 15 days. He was in isolation when I left the prison on 
October 1st, 1919. 

Nicholas Zenn Zogg (spelled on the prison records Zough) serving ten 
years on the charge of aiding a young man to evade the draft. He was trans- 
ferred to the Atlanta penitentiary from the Federal prison at McNeill’s 
Island, State of Washington. Zogg is in the last stages of tuberculosis, and 

21 


is being practically starved to death by the refusal of the authorities to permit 
him to buy or to receive suitable food from friends. He has been a strict 
vegetarian all his life, as were his father and grandfather before him, and 
he is neither physically nor conscientiously able to partake of the regular 
prison diet. He is forced to live mostly on oatmeal, badly prepared and 
served in the most unpalatable manner. Nothwithstanding the fact that 
Zogg is barely able to walk about, he has been repeatedly thrown into the 
dungeon for alleged breaches of discipline. 

Jack Randolph, an I. W. W., serving 10 years for opposition to the war, 
in very delicate health and unable to perform the amount of work demanded 
of him in the tailor shop, was repeatedly punished in the dungeon and in 
solitary. 

“Red” Massey, an I. W. W., from New Orleans, sent to the Atlanta 
prison on a frame-up charge under the Mann Act. This man has been kept 
in solitary and in isolation almost continuously for a year, and punished 
in the dungeon on the slightest pretext. 

Morris Becker, sentenced to 20 months on the charge of conspiracy 
against the draft. This young man, of very slight physique, weighing about 
100 pounds, and for over a year unable to eat anything except bread and 
oatmeal because of his poor physical condition and also because he was a 
vegetarian, was ordered to do yard work. His job consisted in wheeling 
a large wheelbarrow full of bricks and cement up a very steep incline. 
Becker was unable to perform the work. For his “refusal to work” he was 
sent to the dungeon and there kept for 21 days on two slices of bread and 
water a day. He was released from the dungeon almost half dead, where- 
upon the authorities admitted that he was unable to perform the hard toil 
allotted to him. He was then assigned to the tailor shop. 

Louis Kramer, serving 2 years for conspiracy to obstruct the draft, 
assigned, like Becker, to the same yard work, and equally unable to perform 
the task. Kept in the dungeon 21 days on bread and water. Subsequently 
repeatedly punished in the dark cell on the slightest or no provocation, 
chained up by the wrists to the door, and kept in isolation for 5 months till 
his discharge in June, 1919. 

Louis Kramer is now serving one year in the Essex County Penitentiary, 
N. J., for refusing to register. 

Alexander Berkman, sentenced to 2 years on the charge of conspiracy 
to obstruct the draft. Kept in the dungeon for five days on bread and water 
for circulating a petition in the tailor shop, protesting to the Warden against 
the brutal clubbings of defenceless prisoners; also in protest against the 
unprovoked murder of “Kid” Smith by Officer Dean. Sentenced to solitary 
and isolation for 7%-- months, for calling the attention of Deputy Warden 
Girardeau to the brutalities practiced by the keepers in his charge, and for 
calling the Deputy a hypocrite. Kept thirty consecutive hours in the “dark 
hole” with the blind door on, which almost absolutely excludes all light and 
air, with the result that the man thus punished is put through the torture of 
gradual suffocation, — one of the worst forms of punishment known in prison 

22 


life. During three months forbidden to receive or send mail, read papers 
or books, or to have any exercise whatever. Held in solitary and in isola- 
tion continuously from February 21st, to the day of discharge, October 1st, 

As an instance of wilful brutality practiced upon the ordinary prisoner, 
I may cite the case of A. Popoff. In the latter part of 1917, while in a state 
of temporary mental aberration, Popoff killed a former Deputy Warden of 
the prison. He was taken out for trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. 
Upon his return from the court, the Atlanta penitentiary authorities con- 
fined him in a dark dungeon and kept him there continuously for two years, 
most of the time on a bread-and-water died. Almost Qvery week Popoff was 
subjected to a terrific beating by several guards, after which he would be 
carried to the hospital unconscious, and later again returned to the dungeon. 
This treatment was kept up from 1917 till August, 1919. Popoff became a 
raving maniac, and still his punishment in the dungeon continued. Finally, 
in the latter part of 1919, he was transferred to an insane asylum. 

This is one of the instances of a prisoner of infantile mentality being 
deliberately driven into insanity by torture and by barbaric treatment. 

This is but a small fragment of the numerous brutalities practiced 
daily in the U. S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga. The lot of the average 
prisoner is hard enough, but the politicals are particularly discriminated 
against in the matter of -work, of general treatment, and specifically in rela- 
tion to their mail privileges. A young keeper, whose education does not 
exceed the three R’s, is the chief prison censor, with the result that most of 
the mail sent to the politicals never reaches its destination. 

In the daily routine of prison life, there are many and various oppor- 
tunities to make the existence of the inmates Unbearable. In Atlanta there 
are quite a number of petty officials, from the Deputy down, who make the 
best of these opportunities, especially in regard to the politicals. To the 
average prison keeper, the political offender is a non-understandable thing. 
He knows that the convict is either a murderer, robber or a thief, but that 
a man should be willing to go to prison for no material benefit to himself, 
is beyond his ken. That one should risk his liberty merely for the sake of 
ideas or ideals, is almost beyond belief , and is positive proof — in the eyes 
of the average prison keeper — that the man is either crazy or hopelessly 
depraved. Such a man need expect neither understanding, sympathy, nor 
mercy. The average man is inclined to distrust and hate the thing he does 
not understand, and we always try to suppress the thing we hate. Hence, 
the more than usually inhumane and brutal treatment of the political prison- 
ers in the penal institutions of America. 

Alexander Berkman 


23 


IN CONCLUSION 


HPHE results attained by penal institutions are the very opposite of the ends 

sought. The modern form of “civilized” revenge kills, figuratively speak- 
ing, the enemy of the individual citizen, but it breeds in his place the enemy 
of society. The prisoner of the State does not regard the person he injured 
as his particular enemy — as did the member of the primitive tribe, for in- 
stance, feeling the wrath and revenge of the wronged one. Instead, he looks 
upon the State as his direct punisher; in the representatives of the law he 
sees his personal enemies. He nurtures his wrath, and wild thoughts of 
revenge fill his mind. His hate toward the persons directly responsible, in 
his estimation, for his misfortune — the arresting officer, the jailer, the prose- 
cuting attorney, judge and jury — gradually widens in scope, and the poor 
unfortunate becomes an enemy of society as a whole. Thus, while our penal 
institutions are supposed to protect society from the prisoner so long as he 
remains one, they cultivate in him the germs of social hatred and enmity. 

Deprived of his liberty, his rights, and the enjoyment of life; all his nat- 
ural impulses, good and bad alike, suppressed; subjected to indignities and 
disciplined by harsh and often most inhumane methods, generally maltreated 
and abused by official brutes whom he despises and hates, the prisoner comes 
to curse the fact of his birth, the woman that bore him, and all those re- 
sponsible, in his eyes, for his misery. He is brutalized by the treatment he 
receives, and by the revolting sights he is forced to witness in prison. What 
manhood he may have possessed is soon eradicated by the “discipline.” His 
impotent rage and bitterness are turned into hatred toward everything and 
everybody, the feeling growing in intensity as the years of misery come and 
go. He broods over his troubles, and the desire to revenge himself grows 
on him. Soon it becomes a fixed determination. Society had made him 
an outcast: it is his natural enemy. Nobody had shown him either kindness 
or mercy; he will be merciless to the world. 

Then he is released. His former friends spurn him; he is no more 
recognized by his acquaintances. Society points its finger at the ex-convict, 

24 


He is looked upon with scorn, derision, and disgust. He is distrusted and 
abused. He has no money, and there is little charity for the “moral leper.” 
He finds himself a social Ishmael, with everybody’s hand turned against 
him — and he turns his hand against everybody else. 

The penal and the alleged “protective” functions of prisons thus defeat 
their own ends. Their work is not merely unprofitable; it is worse than 
useless. It is positively and absolutely detrimental to the best interests of 
society. 

There exists no other institution among the diversified “achievements” 
pf modern society which, while assuming a most important role in the des- 
tinies of mankind, has proven a more reprehensible failure. Millions of 
dollars are annually expended for the maintenance of prisons — a great deal 
more than is spent on educational institutions in this country. That money 
could be invested with as much profit and less harm in government bonds of 
the planet Mars, or sunk in the Atlantic. No amount of punishment can 
obviate or “cure” crime so long as prevailing conditions, in and out of 
prison, drive men to it. 

Alexander Berkman 


25 


LEAGUE for the AMNESTY 


of POLITICAL PRISONERS 

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care of the immediate needs of the women and children left with- 
out support because of the many and sudden arrests of radicals 
subject to deportation. Their need is very urgent. 


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Should Thought 
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or do you approve of the sentiments expressed by ALEXANDER 
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I deny the right of any one — individually or col- 
lectively — to set up an inquisition of thought. 

Thought is, or should be, free. My social views 
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I owe no one responsibility for them. Responsi- 
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ALEXANDER BERKMAN ( Committee 

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